12

I am surprised this isn't implemented already. But I have been looking for a way to be able to set a running program as a dock that hides to a screen edge and appears with the mouse. This would work much like the plasma panel does. But it would be a running application window set in a panel of some sort.

I have no understanding of how this would work such as no coding knowledge (very little). I don't know if this would be a kwin feature with "window-specific" settings for each program the user would want to do this for. Or if there is some way of working this in to plasma (which already is but doesn't work the way I would like it to).

Gnome has this capability with an application called "gnome-swallow-applet." I have tried installing it, but it depends on too many gnome stuff that it would actually install gnome. See here for what one user explains what I am looking for in KDE: Set gimp-toolbox dock as a hidden panel.
http://webupd8.blogspot.com/2009/06/make-gimp-panels-auto-hide-in-gnome.html

As I said above, KDE has this as a plasmoid called "plasmoid-embed-win" I tried experimenting with it and set it in a panel with the gimp-toolbox in it. It works by itself as a plasmoid on the desktop. But in the panel it shrinks it down making it useless. Here are some screenshots of what I mean "shrink down."

gimp-toolbox in left panel with plasmoid-embed-win...shrinks down.


gimp-toolbox in left panel in plasmoid-embed-win. This is the way it is supposed to work. I made this work by adding a panel spacer, and then clicking to resize the spacer causes the plasmoid-embed-win to expand showing gimp-toolbox fully. However, once you click (on gimp-toolbox), it releases the spacer and makes it shrink again.


gimp-toolbox in top panel (it doesn't shrink it down. but the vertical size is restricted to the max size of the panel height. As you may be able to tell, I separated the gimp-toolbox into 3 different docks in 3 separate plasmoid-embed-win)...


As you can see, this is already a possibility in KDE using the plasma panel. It just needs to be worked on (plasmoid-embed-win). There are limitations to the plasma:
1.) As I mentioned, restricted vertical/horizontal size by panel height/width.
2.) At current, unable to save specific application settings. Unable to reopen gimp with those settings.
3.) Cant think of others ATM.

The alternative, would be some kind of Kwin settings for "window-specific" settings.
1.) Using current system, just add window to panel left/right/top/bottom.
2.) Autohide
3.) Settings to be able to place selected window/dock (gimp-toolbox) in a panel when opened (current window-specific kwin settings).
4.) Many more...

I realize this would take some kind of code to set up the panel environment for kwin. Not sure if that is possible. But that is why I post this here for you to see.

sxe posted this on kde-look about his idea "apps as plasmoids."
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php/Apps+as+plasmoids+?content=108172

So there is interest in this kind of window operation. Hopefully the KDE developers can come up with a way.

Thanks